We All Fall Down
by AquaCapricorn
Summary: Post-pacifist, Dad Gaster AU. After an accident at the CORE, Papyrus and Sans find themselves in the same situation Gaster was in a long, long time ago. Trapped in The Void, they find an overjoyed Gaster, happy to have his family all back together. However, Gaster will not let them leave. They will not be separated again. Gaster will do anything he can to keep them trapped forever.
1. Chapter 1

It had only been a month or two since monsters have left the underground, and the CORE already looked so different.

Sans adjusted himself to the smoldering heat, tempting fate with every step he took on the crumbling platform. The CORE was now inactive, the last remaining bursts of heat slowly melting away at the grand machine. Every so often, a brief flash of blue or yellow would flicker at the bottom, as if the machine refused to die, but the brief bursts were offset by the orange glow of the heat below. He stopped as he approached the left edge of a long corridor, barred by loose rails. This was where Gaster fell. If his vague memory weren't enough to go by, the data readings sure were.

Sans pulled out a small cubical device, watching the readings start to spin out of control. The temperature bounced up and down rapidly, the time fluctuations getting worse and worse the closer he moved to the edge. The FUN value was shifting rapidly near this small section, each panel changing dimensions, each so similar that nothing seemed to be wrong at a glance. Even in his bones, Sans could feel his magic losing it's form and control, his magic growing chaotic near this site. The stability of time-space here was weak. Good, it meant he was close.

Sans pulled out his phone, and tapped in Alphys' number.

* * *

Alphys shoved another piece of popcorn into her mouth, watching the screen, which projected an anime about magical fighting princesses. Next to her was Undyne, who was watching with intent. Suddenly, Alphys' phone rang, playing the theme song to Mew Mew Kissy Cutie. "Oops!" Said Alphys. "Hey, Undyne, can you pause the show, I-I'll be back in a second."

"Who calls at 11pm!?" Undyne growled, but paused the show anyways.

Alphys picked up the phone. "H-hey, who is it?" She whispered into the phone.

"it's sans. i'm at the spot, do you have the machine ready?" He said,

"O-oh, I didn't think you would be that quick. Hey, um, can you wait for ten minutes, you know me and Undyne watch anime on Sunday nights. Just this one episode, I p-promise, it'll only be like fifteen minutes, please I just-"

"hey it's ok, it's no rush. i could always use extra time for nothing. time sent doin' nothing is my favorite time." Normally, that would be true. Right now though, that was a lie, Sans couldn't wait to get the machine on. He had been working on it for so long, and finally it was time to get some accurate readings. Time to find Gaster.

"Ok, sorry, I'll go get the machine running and call you back, ok?"

"ok, but don't wait too long, you wouldn't want me falling asleep right into the core. by the way, remember, if you tell a single soul about this, i'll you into a fossil."

Alphys ended the call with a nervous gulp, walking back into the room.

"Who was it?" Said Undyne, rather grumpily.

"Just Sans." Replied Alphys. "N-nothing important, just another p-prank call."

"Another prank call? Ugh, I swear, sometimes I just want to.." Said Undyne, rubbing her temples. "Let's just get back to the show."

* * *

Sans could almost remember seeing Gaster here, prepared to harness the CORE's power in an attempt to shatter the barrier. A machine that could remove the barrier from existence, to free monsters from the terrible prison that encased us all.

But, with one false move, one slip into the CORE, Gaster got not only himself erased, but every single copy of him in every timeline. Even memories of him seemed to fade, all but to Sans, who rediscovered Gaster in his dreams of The Void. The Void was always inky black, like light itself was being absorbed, with nothing in sight but sometimes Gaster would be in a grey, featureless room. It was his home in The Void, a single piece of creation in the endless emptiness.

After several failed attempts at getting Gaster back, Sans had discovered that The Void was outside of any of the timelines, only briefly and rarely accessible through a few timelines, with the right FUN value. FUN was an acronym. It stood for Fluctuating Universal Number. Every timeline had one, and it always changed when the human reset. Every reset was awoken from like a dream, but between those brief periods, when Sans was truly asleep and not thrown into the next reset, Sans dreamt of Gaster, and spoke to him. With the help of Alphys and the human themselves, the Timeline Machine was almost repaired. A machine that could displace someone from one timeline or plane, to another.

After many dreams, Sans and Gaster formulated a plan to find Gaster in this splintered timeline, and restore him to reality. Even in those dreams it seemed ridiculous, but now, he felt so close to discovering Gaster's whereabouts. Just as long as nobody gets in the way, every should be-

Sans turned around, hearing the noise of footsteps. His eye-sockets went blank, his shoulders tensing up. The footsteps were heavy and fast, like somebody running at full speed. Sans quickly stuffed the small cubic device into his hoodie, and ran to the entrance of the short corridor. If it were one of the Gaster followers, he would surely find himself in a fight, or worse yet, if The Void itself somehow sensed his plan.

Sans' left eye started glowing a bright cobalt, as he prepared a rapid blue attack, only to stop when he was not attacked, but hugged.

"BROTHER! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?" Said Papyrus, picking up Sans in a hug before putting him back down. Papyrus was wearing a loose orange sweater, with his favourite red scarf still there, stuffed into the neck of the sweater (Papyrus' strong suit was never fashion, pun fully intended) , making his appearance at the CORE all the more surprising. He was definitely not dressed for it. He probably ran through the entire underground to get here.

"i should be asking the same thing." Said Sans. With everybody gone, the underground had become twice as dangerous, with puzzles laying unattended and Flowey still underground. God knows what Sans would do if that flower hurt Papyrus. Nevermind that, how did Papyrus even know he was in the underground?

"I HEARD FROM THE HUMAN THAT YOU CAME HERE FOR... "RESEARCH"? ARE YOU TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THE BEST WAY TO COOK YOUR FOOD, BECAUSE I CAN ASSURE YOU THAT A STOVE IS MUCH BETTER THAN AN ENDLESS PIT FULL OF SEARING HEAT!"

"heh, not exactly." Sans considered for a second to tell Papyrus about Gaster, but stopped. No, Papyrus didn't need to know until the time came to return Gaster. Sans would sound crazy, telling Papyrus that they had a father that he was trapped between dimensions.

"WHAT ARE YOU HERE FOR THEN?! CAN I HELP!?"

"paps, it would be best if you went back home. frisk needs you." Sans made up something quick on the spot, hoping Papyrus would return to the surface. To his surprise, Papyrus only gripped his shoulder in response, shivering ever-so-slightly. "what's the matter?"

"THIS PLACE GIVES ME A BAD FEELING. LIKE SOMETHING BAD'S GOING TO HAPPEN HERE. IF I'M LEAVING, I WANT YOU TO COME WITH ME." Papyrus seemed uncharastically quiet, though his voice still very loud compared to Sans'. It was almost like Papyrus could recall what happened here, yet Sans knew that it was impossible, given Gaster's wipe from existence.

Sans sighed. "ok, just give me a second." Sans took out the device, attaching it to the edge of the CORE's corridor, when he felt a presence looming nearby.

The presence was so familiar, nearly completely in sync with his own soul. The presence could be none other than Gaster, but why was he observing now? The cubical machine shook, as the CORE let out a mighty groan. The corridor had began to break down, the machine the final straw on it's crumbling spires. The rails snapped off as the ever-hungering fires of the CORE's pit consumed them.

Sans' leg slipped off the edge, catching him off-guard, but he had to attach the machine on. He could almost hear a distant distorted screaming, as if Gaster was trying to tell Sans to get away quickly. The risk is worth it, if it meant getting Gaster back. Bits and pieces of the corridor fell with their support, the cube machine with it. Quickly, Sans turned around to get on his feet and teleport away, but his other leg slipped off. Before he could fall, a bony arm grabbed him.

"SANS, WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!" Papyrus ran to his brother, catching Sans before he could slip further.

"i'll be fine, just run away!" Said Sans. Sans caught his breath as Papyrus panted, trying to escape the CORE's collapse. Holding Sans quite visibly held him behind as he let out a huff. "i can teleport, papyrus, i'll be fine, just save yourself." The platform gave way under Papyrus and Sans, sending them falling towards the CORE.

Sans, panicked, sent a row of bones bursting out from what remained of the corridor, catching their fall just before they landed into the CORE. Blue and yellow flashed below like menacing jaws, and the distant heat was charring his bones. It was like Grillby on a bad day. Sans let out a sigh of relief, but Papyrus was quite visibly shaken. "SANS! OH MY GOSH! WE'RE GOING TO DIE! WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE!?"

"well, if you want to get to the _core_ of the issue.."

"THIS IS NO TIME FOR PUNS!" Yelled Papyrus, a mixture of confused, angry and scared. The bones were slipping, and San's had a hard time keeping focus on his magic.

"we don't have very much time, do we? i was hoping for more time to tell you the story. someone's lost here, and i was looking for them. i needed the machine to attach to the core to look for them, but now it's... gone." Sans looked below, the bone wall starting to crack open to reveal the void below.

"DID THEY FALL IN?" For how naive Papyrus usually was, he seemed to have a relatively good gut instinct going into this. _D-did he know?_ Sans couldn't help but start to wonder.

"yes, but don't worry, we aren't going to. papyrus, grab onto me, and don't let go." Said Sans, conjuring up all his magic. There was one last shot to get out of here. Teleportation.

Focusing on his soul and it's attunement to Gaster, he tried to displace himself away. Papyrus grabbed onto Sans, holding tightly, his gloved hands digging into Sans' hoodie. Blue magic fizzed around them, trying to move, but it chaotically coiled around the surrounding area, draining Sans far more than it should. His magic was vile and uncontrolled, much different than the usual precision of it's might.

The space here was warped by The Void. The magic was being absorbed by it's instability, leaving the spell distorted. It was as if something grabbed his magic and tried to pull it from his body, tearing it into bits. _Was this what it was like when Gaster fell? Magic torn to shreds from inside out?_ Sans couldn't help but wonder as the spell failed.

"something's not right. it's not working." Sans could hear his own voice fading out as his magic darted in a chaotic manner, displacing him several times in several differing spots, glitching back and forth as the CORE drew nearer. The distortion of time-space here was too great. Sans could feel his arms drop in defeat, only to be held back up again by Papyrus, gripping his hands tightly. Guilt hung in his imaginary stomach like a stone. He failed Papyrus, and now they both were going to die, or worse.

They were in freefall, the corridor crumbling beside them, the orange heat consuming the pillars like a wolf might a sheep. The CORE was melting into itself, blue and yellow flashes bursting quicker and quicker. The time-space grew distorted, making what was seconds feel like minutes spent in a hopeless fall. The blazing chaos of the CORE came closer and closer, both of the skeletons feeling them forms and magic starting to lose their stability. Sans hands detached from Papyrus', but the taller skeleton was quick to latch back on.

"DON'T LET GO SANS, I-I'M SCARED."

"it's ok, i am too. _i am too._ "

The CORE's light devoured both Papyrus and Sans in it's searing glow.


	2. Chapter 2

Alphys got up from her seat, adjusting her glasses. Oh my gosh, her and Undyne had fallen asleep! Alphys silently leapt off the couch and made her way downstairs to the machine, bringing her phone with her. Alphys quickly checked her phone to see if there were any messages, but there were none to be seen. She let out a hefty sigh of relief.

Sans must have fallen asleep as well. At least he got the machine onto the CORE, judging by the readings the machine was getting. Alphys felt slightly uneasy, however. Wait..

 _"..wouldn't want me falling asleep right into the core."_

That was a joke, right? Alphys let out a nervous laugh, and checked the machine's findings, when she heard a knock on the door. "U-Undyne I'll be right there-" The door burst open. "I CAN EXPLAin... Oh, i-it's just you." Said Alphys to Frisk, letting another choked laugh escape her lips. That child had the strength of ten monsters.

Frisk tugged at Alphys' coat, a bead of sweat trickling down the child's forehead. "What's the matter?" Questioned Alphys. Alphys leaned over and Frisk whispered into her earhole. "Papyrus went to go find Sans? T-this can't be good." Frisk whispered more things into Alphys' ear, and her expression quickly changed from worried to dreadful.

"They haven't returned? Oh no..."

* * *

Everything was cold. Cold and dark. Endlessly so, an expanse with seemingly no end.

It was a big jump, to go from being with Papyrus, falling into the searing CORE, to being in this desolate place. From warm to cold, from together to alone. The change was apparent the second time-space split open between the two. The rest was just darkness for who knew how long, until Sans finally came to his senses. The Void was empty and lifeless, a place of loneliness, not just from people, but from the universe itself.

Sans was used to being alone. It was a constant of the more... murderous runs. But here, it didn't feel like he was alone. No, every step of the endless void seemed to probe at him, and though he knew there was no intelligence behind this empty void, he couldn't shake the feeling of being watched.

Sans got to his feet, stumbling for the first few seconds. Every movement he made sent a throb of pain through his bones, spiking near his forehead, where all the pain was condensed into a splitting headache. Sans raised a hand to his head, feeling wet beads of perspiration falling from his skull. Yet, he felt something incredibly wrong, the source of these terrible headaches.

A splintered crack in his skull reached from the top of his head to his right eye, reaching a slightly droopy black socket. Sans ran his finger along it, feeling every crack that formed, before a sharp pain hit his head again. The crack wasn't fatal, but it hurt like hell.

Forcing himself to keep walking, Sans eventually reached a point at which he was too tired to continue on, and he collapsed onto his knees. How far was The Void? Did it continue on forever? As he was pondering, Sans eventually felt a skeletal hand touch his shoulders, and he flinched, turning around in fright.

Was that Gaster!? Sans nearly had a heart attack, falling over backwards. He prepared to charge up his magic, before he realised-

It was just Papyrus. Yet the resemblance was uncanny. Papyrus' eyes were rounder, hollowed out, with a similar splinter to Sans running from his left eye to his mouth. Papyrus already looked like Gaster enough as it was, without half of his iconic markings. Putting two and two together, Sans realised that his splinter was also half of Gaster's markings. How ironic.

Sans pulled himself together, channeling down his magic.

"papyrus, you have to stop scaring me like this."

"SORRY! I'M JUST SO HAPPY YOU'RE OK!" Said Papyrus. "I WOKE UP WITH THIS REALLY BAD HEADACHE AND I HAD A CRACK IN MY SKULL AND THEN I REALISED YOU ONLY HAD ONE HP SO I GOT SUPER WORRIED. BUT YOU'RE OK, RIGHT!?"

"i've been better." Said Sans, rubbing the side of his skull. The headache had begun to die down, but his bones still ached, especially his legs (most likely from all the walking). "i'm really tired."

"COME ON SANS, STOP BEING SUCH A LAZYBONES AND LET'S GO FIND OUR WAY OUT OF THIS PLACE!"

"ugh, sorry, nope, can't get up... too lazy." Sans got up, walked two steps and promptly slumped back onto the ground.

Papyrus let out a sigh, picking up Sans on his shoulders. "WORRY NOT, DEAR BROTHER, THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL CARRY YOU THROUGH THE DARK VOID WITH NO END! LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!"

It was about 20 seconds before Sans fell asleep.

* * *

"So you're telling me that there was a time machine in the basement all along!?" Said Undyne, poking the machine and scouring through notes. "What's all this nerd stuff anyways?!"

"W-well, have you ever gotten, um, an odd sense that you've done anything before? Have you woken up from any really realistic dreams lately?" Said Alphys, to which Undyne did a quizzical nod. " It's because you have done those things before. DT, ahem, ah, determination, has many impressive powers, among which one appears to the ability to stop, reset and change timelines to their will. Sans built this machine to track the timelines, and influence them, back when the resets were frequent, until he found the source of the resets, Frisk. Frisk thankfully reached an agreement with us to never reset again, so we reworked the machine to.. uh.. travel through the timelines created by these resets. "

"FRISK!" Undyne picked up Frisk by the head, the young child trying to squirm away. "YOU LITTLE PUNK! WHY DO YOU KEEP HIDING IMPORTANT STUFF LIKE THIS!?"

Frisk giggled, breaking free from Undyne's hand. She let Frisk go, but quickly turned from an expression of playfulness to one of worry.

"So, what does this have to do with Sans and Papyrus going back to the underground?" Undyne said, crossing her arms.

"Nobody knows about the royal scientist before me. Not even I know much about him, aside from what Sans told me." Said Alphys. "He fell into the CORE, and was lost among the timelines. Sans called him Gaster, and s-said he was his and Papyrus' father. Honestly, I don't know anything else about him, aside from the odd blueprint. Me and S-Sans repaired the machine's timeline travelling features, and Sans planned to retrieve him from The Void, a space outside of any timeline. Sans went to the CORE to figure out where The Void was in time-space, b-but, he's been gone for a long time, as well as Papyrus. O-o-oh, this is all my fault, I never s-should have gone along with this ridiculous plan!" Said Alphys.

"Hey, Alphys, it's not your fault, I'm sure we can fix this. The machine appears to still be working." Said Undyne.

"B-but without Sans' help in operating the machine, it could take days or even weeks. He's the one who built it, and I'm still deciphering all of these blueprints." Said Alphys, pulling out several pages of a disorganized binder. The time machine displayed several numbers from the cubical machine, though scrambled by the distortion of time-space inside The Void.

"We'll have to tell Toriel and Asgore about this, they'll find out sooner or later." Said Undyne, gritting her teeth. "They're already wondering where Sans and Papyrus are and it's SIX in the morning." She appeared a bit frustrated, probably about being woken up so early.

"I-I know. J-j-just give me a moment." Whispered Alphys, running a claw down a blueprint. "I-I can't do this. I keep messing up, a-and this will be another one of my pathetic failures. They'll hate m-me."

"Alphys, don't hide things from them, they won't hate you for this, I promise. I know Asgore, he's a nice guy, and Toriel seems really kind too."

"You're right. I promised myself i wouldn't lie anymore. Let's go tell the truth." Said Alphys, tucking a blueprint under a shelf before heading out. As she went out, Undyne gave her a kiss on the forehead, making the short dinosaur blush.

"And don't hide things from me either. I can handle it!" Said Undyne, giving her trademark grin, although it was faltering at the edges.

* * *

Papyrus finally collapsed. After walking for over three hours in a straight line, holding Sans in his arms, he was ready to fall. With a thud, he hit what he assumed to be the ground of this seemingly infinite place.

"SANS! I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE WE ARE!" Said Papyrus, trying to get back up. Sans let out a snort as he awoke.

"still in the void i think." Said Sans. Black over there, black here, black underneath. Yup, it's still The Void.

"OH, WHERE IS THE EXIT?! I WAS SUPPOSED TO TAKE FRISK TO SCHOOL AND COOK WITH UNDYNE AND- OOOOH..." Papyrus was quite visibly freaking out.

"hey, now that we're in the void, we have all the time in the world, or.. uh, rather outside of it." Said Sans with a shrug. Papyrus didn't have the power to complain, so he just nodded lightly. "i should probably tell you about gaster."

"WHO?"

"he-" Sans was cut off by the noise of distant static, before he felt a familiar presence behind him. Gaster materialized behind Sans, sending the smaller skeleton running backwards into his brother's arms.

" _Now, now,_ it's rude to talk about someone who's listening."


	3. Chapter 3

"I do not understand, why are you bringing us here, Alphys?" Said Toriel, following behind Alphys. Asgore was a few feet behind her, looking rather scared. Whether it was of where he was being taken or of Toriel, Alphys was not sure. The basement of Undyne and Alphys' single-story house was lined with wires and cables, stretching across the stony walls like veins. "And what are all of these resets you are talking about?"

"I-it's ok, I don't fully understand resets either, but the point is, Sans and Papyrus are missing. If we don't restabilize them, e-everybody will forget them and t-they'll cease to exist across the timelines." Alphys opened the door to her secret lab, the veins of wires compacting into vast tendons that pulsed to the central organ that was the time machine. An uneasy atmosphere filled the room, along with the distinct smell of newly-coated paint.

"I still don't get it, what happened to them!?" Said Toriel, picking up various blueprints. They looked... familiar, yet so very alien. The symbols were hands and faces, among other things, used as text on the machine's plan. Other letters were coated in recent scribbly letters, files about the two brothers (though all photos looked blank, and the info on them was... limited) and other odd things. Plans, blueprints. The remainders of an existence erased, thousands of existences erased. Sans was right about the machine. It could protect against resets.

"Do you remember the previous royal scientist, the one before me?" Said Alphys. "The one that built the CORE?"

"Oh course I do, his name is..." Asgore's voice trailed off, and Toriel did not look so eager to answer that question.

"The CORE, it's powerful enough to displace monsters to a place outside of any timeline. No amount of RESETs could get Gaster back, so me and Sans turned to a... second option." Said Alphys, looking over to the machine. "S-something went wrong, and although I have.. theories, I've deduced the most likely outcome to be t-that Sans and Papyrus fell i-into The Void. I found that t-the device is outside of any timeline, and instead, it's in something else. Not only that, b-but I want to conduct a short test, to verify my hypothesis. Toriel, Asgore, I want you to list off everything you know about Sans and Papyrus."

"They're brothers, they lived in Snowdin." Said Toriel, the more confident of the pair. That was all she could recall, and that fact terrified her. She couldn't remember why she knew them, or how.

"Sans liked puns. Papyrus.. um.. I don't know?" Asgore twirled a coil of hair from his mane, struggling to think of anything else. But his memories of them, they were nothing but a feeling, a blotted pit in his throat. A vague feeling that started to slip his mind whenever he thought of something related to them.

"Anything else?"

...

"It's ok.

I'm sure they're doing ok. We not remember very much, but I'm sure they remember us. A-and I got a feeling that Sans will know exactly what to do with the device.

I-I'll try my best to bring them back, and maybe... you'll remember?" Alphys wasn't sure of that last part.

Even she was beginning to forget.

* * *

His body was like smoke, pieces curling off into the void, yet still retaining his shape. His body moved like it was floating, shuffling across the vast darkness, a long black robe dragging behind his slow movements. Underneath, was a white sweater, bits of melted bone clinging to the neck. The skeleton underneath was even taller than Papyrus, and perhaps even thinner, if that were possible for a skeletal being. He looked more like a moving shadow than a skeleton.

"It's been so long." Gaster's voice matched his broken appearance, a deep rasp escaping from lips that barely moved. His voice went up and down in pitches, as if it were distorted. "Heh, I shouldn't be so surprised to find you two here. After all, I saw you fall."

"gaster, i.." Sans didn't know what to say. He was speechless. So many years, and he finally saw Gaster in person. But, this wasn't how Sans hoped he would finally meet him.

Papyrus held Sans in his arms, casting a slightly confused glance upon Gaster, all the while making sure his brother was protected. Papyrus felt something undoubtedly familiar about Gaster, the way his soul pulsed, in tune with his and Sans' own. Yet, from the way Sans was acting, Papyrus knew to be wary of this new visitor.

"i... oh my god, how long has it been? is it really you?" Sans started to cry, falling from Papyrus' hands and onto his knees.

Gaster held out his hands, and began making symbols. Though Papyrus had never read any symbols like them before, he understood what each of them meant, and they began to spell out a sentence. _"I'm the legendary fartmaster."_ He must have misread that. Nope, he definitely hasn't misread that.

Sans smiled wide, clearing a tear from his eye-socket. "wow gaster, you haven't changed a bit." Said Sans.

Gaster let out a low mumble. "Only for you."

"I'M REALLY CONFUSED. WHO ARE YOU? WHY ARE YOU THE LEGENDARY FARTMASTER?!" Papyrus flailed his arms. Sans stifled a giggle, while Gaster let out a slightly happy murmur.

"I'm Gaster. I am the one Sans was trying to save on his mission. You seem to possess the ability to read my symbols, judging by your remark at our secret code, though I expected that as a given, under the circumstances of your creation. This will spare me much trouble, it will make it easier to share my story... and hide my secrets from this void. As Sans has spared you the details of my story, I shall tell you. Once we reach a more comforting atmosphere. This void will not do, not for the long rest you two surely need."

Gaster extended a long bony hand, the holes in the middle of each glowing with a bright radiance. Magic curled around Sans and Papyrus, and it all came together into a tight orb, like a cocoon. It was uncomfortably tight inside, with gooey bones pressed together tightly. In an instant, they were all transported inside of Gaster's home, a pale grey room interlocked with many other grey rooms. It looked almost like the CORE's old lab living quarters, if it were made of bare grey tiles and nearly empty halls.

"Sorry, I'm used to only transporting one person." Said Gaster, his face weary for a moment. The skeletons were all jumbled into a heap on top of one another, Sans unfortunately being crushed by two larger skeletons.

"so this is where you've been living?" Said Sans, using his own magic to teleport out from under the pile.

"It's not much, but I have made it with my own magic, my own will to bend this Void." Said Gaster, demonstrating by pulling a pillow out of thin air and placing on the chair. "The Void has many useful assets if you learn to use it properly." He had an uncanny optimism in his voice, but it was not unwavering and sincere like Papyrus' hope was. It felt forced, as if Gaster were trying to find a positive in The Void, his prison. "Now come along, I have something to show you two."

Gaster led the pair to a single room among the hall. Every so often, Papyrus would try to peek into one of the other rooms, only to have it slammed in his face by a disapproving Gaster. "Don't look in there! This is all highly deadly scientific equipment."

"THAT ROOM BACK THERE WAS JUST FULL OF REPLICA ACTION FIGURES!" Said Papyrus, pointing to a now-closed door, hidden behind it a collection of super-hero and anime action figures. Gaster's cheeks turned a flushed red, and Sans nudged Gaster's leg. As much as Gaster hid it, he was just as much of a nerd as Alphys.

"Scientific!" Yelled Gaster, putting his hands behind his back. "Useful for... testing my theories!"

"it helps him _figure_ out solutions." Sans grinned, and Papyrus groaned.

"SANS!"

"Geh heh heh, there's my little Sans." Gaster gave a small chuckle, before opening the door at the end of the hall. He opened the door to reveal a room with two beds, two table stands, a single large bookshelf, overwhelmed with thick books, and a small amount of replicas from Gaster's collection. The room was almost entirely grayscale, save a splatter of color on a few of the books and replicas, and the blankets of the bed. Rather aptly coloured blue and orange for their respective skeleton. Sans couldn't help but be reminded of his old room, back from the past timeline he only saw in dreams. The time before Gaster was erased.

"Anyways, this will be your home from now on, Sans and Papyrus. I will be here in case you need anything. In fact, Papyrus, if you follow me to the living room, I'll tell you how I ended up here in the first place. But after that, you two need rest, or you will not be in adequate condition for tomorrow's tests." Gaster left, and obviously Papyrus was running as fast as he could to hear the story.

But Sans was just tired. Tired and filled with an aching pain that split his skull. Catching sight of a mirror next to his table-stand, he took the chance to look at his mangled self. It was so different, it took him a second to recognize himself. Not because of the split in his skull, but because of how... serious he looked.

His hoodie's fur lining had begun to melt into it's jacket, and his hands seemed to be dripping ever so slowly. It was more like a sick sort of sweat than his body actually melting away, as there was new bone underneath. The worst part was, just like with Papyrus, his eyes, which were hollow and black, eternally stuck in an expression anybody else would describe as terrifying. There was not a single light in his eye-socket, and his attempts led at a dull flickering. Too weak and tired to even pull an eye-light.

He rested on the bed, surprisingly soft for a void creation. The smell, oh god, it smelled just like his old home. It was giving him the creeps, as if he just woke up from a bad dream, except, it all happened. And his bad dream was his entire life from the point Gaster fell to when they reunited. And he was friends with the creatures in his nightmares. The many friends he made. Toriel. Frisk. They must miss him so much. And with his eye-sockets beginning to shut, he found himself drifting into an unrestful sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Sans awoke in a test tube, filled to the brim with a viscous blue liquid. He couldn't breathe and he could barely move. It felt like his entire body would be breaking apart if it were not for the liquid that held his bones together. It burned like fire, and he felt wounds and cracks weaving throughout his fragile body. He started to panic. _It's just a dream. It's in the past, it can't hurt you._

Tubes were coiled throughout his body, breaking into his skull, delivering a foreign yet similar magic into his system. The unforgettable strength of Gaster's magic pulsed through his small form, giving him the energy to move. His soul was so small, so weak, that he held onto this magic like it was his life. Which it probably was, back then.

Just in that moment, he caught a glance of Gaster, holding a clipboard. He was furiously scribbling symbols on what appeared to be a file. Sans could only make out a few of the words from inside the test tube.

 _"Subject 1... experiment... my own soul wasn't enough... 1 hp... stabilizing..."_

He felt so trapped, yet so intrigued. It felt like a thousand memories were flooding back to him, of a lifetime not entirely his own, yet with him in every single memory. Then, he awoke, so quickly, before he could even find what he wanted to know. He needed to know more.

* * *

Sans was slow to get out of bed. His dream left him in a sudden state between being unable to move and having full control over his body. He stood there, unaware that he could move, as if he were in his body for the first time. Sans finally found the strength in himself to sit up in his bed, gripping the blue covers

Papyrus was sitting next to Sans' bed, instead of on his own. Sans would remember when Papyrus, a small babybones at the time, would crawl into his bed, but those days were long past. He would only do that when he had scary dreams about " _the melting man"._ How foolish he must have been to not realise that Papyrus was talking about Gaster all along (though, the last time Sans saw Gaster in real life, he wasn't quite as... melted). Was Papyrus having the same dreams again? Or was he- Papyrus noticed Sans was awake at last, and turned around.

"HELLO SANS, I THOUGHT YOU WERE NAPPING FOR A SECOND!" Said Papyrus, his neck bent a quite ridiculous degree to peer up at Sans on his bed. Not that it really mattered for a skeleton. Each part was an interlocking piece, held together by magic. Now that Sans thought about it, that's most likely what Gaster was trying to do in his dream.

"i was. why aren't you sleeping?"

"I-I DON'T NEED TO SLEEP! I'M FINE!" Papyrus had quite noticeable bags under his eyes, despite being a skeleton. Monsters were kind of funny that way. Even oozes and five-headed hydras still displayed their emotions in a human-like fashion. Skeletons were no exception.

"you aren't fine." Sans could say that with confidence

"YOU'RE RIGHT. I-I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO THINK, OR WHERE TO GO. HOW WILL I BE A COOL CARETAKER FOR FRISK IF I'M IN THE VOID?! I WANT TO BE WITH DAD, BUT I WANT TO BE HOME, AND I KEEP HAVING THESE WEIRD... NIGHTMARES WHEN I TRY TO FALL ASLEEP. WHERE I'M KILLED OVER AND OVER."

"it can be overwhelming at first, but you just got to learn when to roll with things." Sans remembered the first time he started getting his... "reset dreams" as he called them. He couldn't sleep, and instead took short naps all throughout the day. The habit stuck. "why don't you take a nap?"

"THE GREAT PAPYRUS WILL NOT SNOOZE DURING WHAT IS SURE TO BECOME A PRODUCTIVE DAY OF FAMILY BONDING! I WILL GOOoo.." Papyrus fell to the floor, face-first. Welp, there was one issue taken care of.

"eh, i could use a sleep-in." Sans relaxed, relieving the tensions in his shoulders as he pulled a blanket over his head.

* * *

Naive. Innocent. Gullible.

Gaster learned quickly about Papyrus from just his reactions to his story (which he may have left out some details and/or changed some things from). How Papyrus would always reassure Gaster things would turn out fine, that he would come back to the real world to meet his friend, Frisk. Papyrus started crawling close to Gaster as his long tale went on. By the end of it, Papyrus was hugging him and calling him "Dad." It brought a tingly, warm feeling to his spine. To think that such a long tale was not only believed by Papyrus, but made him so happy. If he had known everything, well... Never mind, such emotions were not the concern of today.

Today, he needed to check on their progress, their development. If there was one thing wrong with being in the void, it was his inability to control anything on a physical level. He could not touch Sans or Papyrus, nor see them outside of dreams, except when the FUN was just right. Now that they were here with him, they were corporeal to him. He opened the door to his lab, when the noise of a sickly pulsing heart drew his attention.

Gaster's eyes flashed a bright purple, as he detected a presence behind him. He spun around, his long skeletal fingers gathering up magic. Using his magic, Gaster hurled a magical bone behind him, watching a shadow retreat into the walls. The shadow gave a snicker, as two eyes retracted into The Void.

"You do not belong here." Gaster's bone whipped back around, like a boomerang, before dissipating in his hands. The creature was here, the other in The Void. Not native, but an anomaly. An anomaly with control in and out of the timelines.

 _"I go where I please."_ The voice sounded more distant by the second, but the venom in it's voice remained.

"Leave me and my sons alone."

 _"Hee hee hee! I think YOU should leave them alone."_

"Why are you here?" Gaster's eyes narrowed.

 _"I wanted to see if it were true! Boy, this is such a funny run, isn't it? Everything was supposed to be peachy-keen, until your two boys fell down here. You do realise what this means, don't you? Haven't you told them anything? About their creation, about the experiments, about The Void? About what happened to them if they stay here?"_

Gaster was silent for a moment.

 _"You sure are a selfish old man. I'm sure Sans and Papyrus will figure it out soon enough, though. Say, you better keep a close watch on them, wouldn't want them getting any ideas, would you?"_

"Don't you have anything better to do than to insult me? I'm doing them a favour and you burst into my house to taunt me."

 _"Mmmm... NOPE!"_ Gaster swore he saw the shadow smile. _"I'm just saying..."_

 _"Watch your back."_ The shadow's grin widened into a toothy and mischievous look.

"Get out, foolish child."

The hall was empty.

* * *

"Breakfast." Gaster's voice sounded rather tired, but that was to be expected. After all, he must have been up all night telling Papyrus that story, along with whatever other scientist things he did at night.

Surprisingly enough, Sans was the first one to get out of bed for breakfast, dragging along Papyrus, who had fallen asleep on the floor. Usually, it was the other way around. Gaster couldn't help but give a small smile.

"eh, sorry, he just kinda passed out. he's sleeping... like the dead." Sans winked to Gaster, who gave a small snicker. Sans looked down at his plate, to see toast and jam. It wasn't real, of course, only a void simulation, but Sans was hungry enough to eat anything. But not before: "wow, this looks really good, but i don't have the stomach for it."

Gaster's smiled faded. Sans latched onto the opportunity to annoy him. "what's the matter? that joke not _jamming_ with you?"

"Sans. Two was enough." Gaster's smile was gone, but Sans' was wider than ever. Gaster was just being a grumpy-bones today.

Thinking of bones though, the dream did come to mind, and Sans couldn't resist asking the question. After the breakfast was finished, Sans pulled in the chair and asked, "Hey, Gaster, how did you make me and Papyrus?" Sans had his suspicions, but

"Hm, I thought you already knew. Well, I guess my exit wasn't quite expected, and you must have forgotten quite a lot. If you follow me, I can do your check up, and I'll teach you of the nature of your SOUL."

"hey, thanks gaster." Sans heard some clattering noises at his feet. Papyrus was awake rather quickly, jumping to both feet. The noise of rattling bones filled the room as Papyrus quickly adjusted himself into standing position.

"C-CHECK UP!? ARE YOU A DOCTOR!? (I DON'T LIKE DOCTORS, THEY'RE SO SCARY.)" Papyrus' voice quivered before the dread of a check-up. Sans always remembered having to drag in a protesting Papyrus to the doctor, and eventually he just stopped. After all, Papyrus was as healthy as a skeleton could be, despite his... unusual diet. He expected no less than 2 gallons of tears. Pushing that aside, how did Papyrus even know?

"wait, did you hear us in your sleep?" Said Sans.

"YES! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AM A MASTER AT PRETEND SLEEPING!"

"i guess you could say that you're a master at playing dead. "

Papyrus groaned, and Gaster used his magic to tug Sans by the hood of his jacket.

"Less puns, more work.

Come on, follow me."

Purple magic gripped both Sans and Papyrus, dragging them along to the lab.

* * *

Frisk sat by themselves, watching Alphys slave away at her work, scouring the pages and the blueprints for anything she could, yet still coming up with nothing of worth, nothing she could decipher and make meaning off. The majority of the blueprints were chicken-scratch at best, and the ravings of a man on the verge of losing his mind at worst.

Frisk crawled into a corner, and shut their eyes for a second, going into a fetal position. They were scared. They wanted Sans and Papyrus back, and soon enough, nobody but them and Chara would remember them.

 _"Did I hear somebody calling my name?"_ It was that voice. The sickeningly sweet one, on par with Flowey's, though not nearly disguised as well. All of their emotion sounded so... artificial. Like they were the dead impersonating the living. Well, that's what they were exactly.

"Chara." Whispered Frisk, so soft nobody but the ghost themself could hear them.

 _"Partner, don't be so hostile, I just want to help you."_

"Please..."

 _"I'm not going to reset. I want to help them too! Look, those two brothers are fun for me, and while they are being watched over by... him, they'll never leave The Void. Sooo, how about we make a little plan. What you need to do, is go back to the Underground, and wait for my cue. I'll need you to do some FUN stuff. I'll catch you up on it later. Sound like a plan? Yes? Ok! Let's do it!"_

"Wait- Chara! Come back!"

...

But nobody came.


	5. Chapter 5

Frisk packed up a bag of chisps and a sandwich in their bag. Good for the long trip back to Mount Ebott. Zipping up the common school bag, they turned to their invisible friend. They had the confidence to finally whisper: "Are you sure this is going to be ok? Mom's going to worried sick about me."

 _"And if you tell her about the two wacky skeleton brothers who were erased from the time-space continuum, she'll think you're crazy."_

"I-I don't like this, Chara. It makes me feel.. bad."

 _"Pfft, we'll be back by tomorrow. Besides, it's summer break, it's not like you have school. Just tell her you're going to go see Asgore- or, scratch that, tell her you're going to go to Alphys' and Undyne's place. She won't even know."_

"Ok, ok." Said Frisk, walking out, and tapping in Toriel's number on their phone.

 _"You're a great partner."_

* * *

The room was pale white, with a clean and organized look. It was still dark. Even through the darkness, Sans could tell this was clearly not the old lab of W.D Gaster. While the rest of the house could be a gray scale replica of their old home, this new lab was much too... clean. Lines of light blue and orange ran through the walls, linked up to several strange machines clearly powered by magic. Sans was intrigued to see what they could do.

Papyrus was not appreciating being held by magic, even one with an aura so familiar. Sometimes he used magic to grip people, but that was only when he was fighting them or trying to save them. Being so casually held, by magic that felt straggling to say the least, was uncomfortable in a variety of ways. Gaster's magic was incredibly strong (perhaps even stronger than Gaster realised at the time) , pushing the two fully-grown skeletons along without hassle.

"CAN YOU LET US DOWN NOW?" Papyrus' voice was harshened by the tight grip of the magic.

"Oh, yes, yes, sorry about that." Said Gaster, waving his hand. With a last pulse of magic, Papyrus and Sans were let down onto two stools. "So, Sans, you wanted to know about your creation, don't you?"

"yes?"

"Well there's not a better time than now, because I have to analysis your soul for your checkup." Gaster took out a device with multiple long cables, and pressed one into both of the skelebros' ribcages. On the monitor of the machine, two souls appeared, both a dusty white in colour, save for the weaving bands of inky black curling around the hearts, in the various cracks splintered across them. It looked as if they were all converging in onto a point of origin.

"THOSE ARE OUR SOULS?"

"Yes. Souls are the essence of a monster, and what gives them both form and heart. When two monsters want to create a child, they must get into close physical proximity to each other and merge small bits of their soul together, which is done when two monste-"

"SANS, I THOUGHT YOU SAID BABIES CAME FROM THE TINY YELLOW BIRD!"

"well, uhhh..." Sans never really got around to explaining the "birds and the bees" to Papyrus, and now he had to deal with his dad giving Papyrus the talk while he listened? Slightly awkward.

"Are you going to let me explain or not?" Gaster placed a hand on his hip, slightly annoyed.

"no, no, go on."

"YES! LET THE STORY COMMENCE!"

"One day, a thought occurred to me. I was not getting any younger, and I wanted a child to carry on my legacy. However, my type of monster, the skeleton, were dying off, and our kind lacked the anatomy or proper magic to do it with most of the other monsters, nevermind the fact that I was uninterested in romance, so I decided to create one.

I was not the first monster to reproduce asexually. Oozes have been doing that for centuries, a trick I could not replicate naturally. You see, oozes have incredible control over their magical form, that allows them to harmlessly split when they are big enough. Skeletons, like us, do not grow bigger once grown, and cannot simply split our bodies and souls, obviously.

I decided to try other methods, to develop a machine that would provide you with an environment to grow your form and soul. I worked on a vast incubation machine, which I could use to create another like me. An artificial womb, per say."

Sans heard Papyrus whisper, "What's a womb?" into his ear, and his face went slightly blue. Not right now, please not right now.

"I split a piece from my soul, which I used to create you, Sans." Gaster pointed to a center of the interlocking black streams, a small white-grey piece of soul. "I placed your soul in the incubation machine, and your budding magic began to take form. At the time of your creation, you were a near-identical clone to me, mentally and physically, though I soon discovered the consequences of only having half of the normal amount of soul used to reproduce. Your body was caught in a state of slow development, and your magic form began to destabilize.

My magic was highly taxed trying to keep you alive while your soul developed into it's own independant organism. Your magic manifested itself a complete, albeit one very weak due to your weakened soul, body. Once you began to develop your own soul, you gained your personality.

You were one of the smartest and funniest monsters I have ever met, Sans, and it was apparent even from early age. You would often steal my books, and get into all sorts of mischief. You grew up such a fine young boy, and were a brilliant, if a bit lazy, assistant." Gaster smiled towards Sans. Sans smiled back, but it quickly faded. Such wonderful things didn't last for very long, and he already knew how this story would end.

"Later in my years, I also created Papyrus in a very similar method, and improvements in my machine fortunately kept him from nearly dying like you did. You two were all I could've ever hoped for, until my demise. I hope.. I hope that we can rebuild what we lost. Now, I'll have to talk to each of you. Sans, we'll talk first. The readings, while overall normal, do bring me some concern."

Gaster walked into a small room offshooting from the lab, a small office of sorts. Papyrus got off of his chair and started pacing, waving a little goodbye to Sans as he entered into the office.

* * *

"wow, this place is almost as messy as my room. i'm impressed."

There had to be dozens, no, hundreds of papers lying about the office. A single swivel-chair, next to a computer open to some sort of security program. The air was thick and musty, and the ground was littered with what appeared to be empty cups of coffee. Gaster sat down in the chair, scribbling a few notes down in a clipboard. Sans was careful as he took a few steps in. It was so cluttered it looked as if one false move could send everything crashing down.

"Take a seat." Gaster's voice got much lower and quieter for a second as he beckoned to Sans.

"there's only one seat-oh, right." A chair materialized behind Sans

"So... How does it feel?"

"what?"

"The transition into The Void. I find it quite humorous that you took on my characteristics as you met my fate, but such effects are superficial compared to what happened to yours and Papyrus' souls. While I have my results, I want to know how it feels. I've never had another here, besides "the thing" and I am quite intrigued."

"it hurts. that good?"

"You never were the talkative one?"

"nah." Gaster let out a sigh.

"Well, might as well get onto the point. Sans, you're relatively healthy for a skeleton who sits around all day and eats nothing but ketchup , but the matter I want to talk about has more to do with your soul. Magic, interesting qualities that developed our unusual connection, like your teleportation." Oh boy, this was going to be a long one. Gaster was already gathering up papers and stacking them in front of Sans.

"yeah?" Sans got comfy in his chair. He could feel a lecture building in Gaster's nonexistent lungs.

"First of all, you have to stop... magic... very dangerous... teleportation is not... FUN is unstable..."

* * *

 _Hey, Papyrus!_ Papyrus shot right up in his seat. He swore he heard something... call his name? But it sounded like it was coming from everywhere, yet nowhere at the same time. "HELLO? MYSTERIOUS VOICE!? WHERE ARE YOU!?"

 _Shut up! Keep quiet!_ The voice sounded angry, before pausing. _I'm waiting outside the lab for you. Gaster is busy talking to Sans, just come out here._

"O-OK." Papyrus tried to whisper, but it was more like screaming softly. The lanky skeleton let himself out of the lab, walking into the hallway, where a shape materialized. A small child, that looked surprisingly similar to Frisk, except for it's blood-red eyes, cheerful smile and green sweater. He didn't know why, but the sight of such a harmless and quite frankly adorable child brought him shivers. Like... Papyrus could feel the pain around his neck. That cutting feeling, the one he felt in his nightmare. He tried to push it away, but it crept in his head like a bad memory.

"D-DO I KNOW YOU?" Papyrus' voice truly was quieter when he was scared. What was a quiet yet boisterous scream turned into a whimper. Chara's smile widened.

 _I believe you do, old friend._

"PLEASE DON'T HURT ME."

 _No need to fear, I don't want to hurt you! I just want to help you, and Sans leave this awful fate._ Papyrus noticed that Chara was floating slightly above the ground, which became more apparent as Chara floated up to meet Papyrus' level. _You'll need to- hey, somebody's watching us, come in closer.._ Chara leaned into Papyrus'... ear-hole? What did those skeletons call it?

"THAT SOUNDS DANGEROUS."

 _Trust me, Gaster's done it hundreds of times. Heck, Sans even does it sometimes. It can't be all that difficult for the great Papyrus! Frisk's waiting for you, and we're ready to have some FUN! I'll tell you how to save everybody! Just trust me._ Chara conjured a small image to the real world, where Frisk walking around Waterfalls. A look of excitement crossed Papyrus' face. Chara smiled back. At this point, the deal was already sealed. No matter what Papyrus said next, Chara knew he would do anything for his friends.

"BUT SANS IS REALLY GOOD AT USING MAGIC TO BE LAZY LIKE THAT. I BARELY EVEN KNOW HOW HE DOES IT. WHY COULDN'T YOU GET HIM TO DO THIS?"

Chara looked away for a second. Obvious reasons they couldn't tell for obvious reasons. _Come on, Papyrus. I believe in you! Frisk believes in you!_

"I'LL TRY..." Papyrus' magic began to focus. He resisted the urge to summon a wall of bones, to protect himself from this strange child, instead focusing it on the desire to see his friends again.

 _Come on, Papyrus, you can do it! Focus your magic! Think about the Waterfalls!_

The hum of orange magic filled the halls, flaring like a burning fire. It cloaked Papyrus, holding on tight. He thought of the vast waterfalls, the dew in the air, the moist grounds. No, not specific enough! Papyrus thought of his brother's watchpost, where he'd always play pranks on those passing by. Those stupid pranks, that would always make Papyrus giggle on the inside. He thought of Undyne's house, and the all the cooking he learned from Undyne's epic lessons. About the sheer coolness of that peak Undyne was always practicing her speech on.

 _I'll be seeing you._

Suddenly, he felt himself pulled across space. He was in a dark grey room, with only a single door. This wasn't Waterfalls! Or was it? This room felt like it shouldn't have existed. He felt himself in a physical room, he could smell the Waterfall's musty air, but something was wrong. It still felt like the Void. Dark and cold.

"WHERE AM i? IT'S sO dARK!" A hundred different voices came out of his mouth like a garbled scream. A bad translation. All of them his, yet each ever-so-slightly different.

Footsteps were coming closer.


	6. Chapter 6

_There's nothing to fear, open the door you scaredy cat._

A door had appeared in Waterfalls, pale grey and otherwise completely normal, if it weren't built into the wall. Pale blue crystals glowed softly, complementing the Waterfall's dark blue and purple stone. Frisk took in a deep breath. "It's...It's just Papyrus, right?" It was no secret that the small child was afraid of Gaster. The last time Chara told them of this trick, that mysterious man was there. It scared the daylight out of Frisk, to see the glitch disappear as fast as it came.

Frisk opened the door with quaking hands, slowly opening the door to gaze into a room that they could only barely remember from many resets ago. It felt like that room shouldn't be here, but somewhere else. Something was curled up in the center of the room. It was completely grayscale, with what looked to be an oversized sweater and scarf melting into cold bone. It appeared to be clutching itself, as to protect itself from some imaginary threat. The slight of light drew the shuffling creature to its feet, quickly getting up to its full height, much taller than Frisk. It took only a second for Frisk to recognize their friend.

"Papyrus?" Frisk ran over to the skeleton, stopping just in front of him. The skeleton's worried face grew into a familiar goofy grin.

"FRIsK!?" Papyrus reached out for a hug, only to have Frisk step back a few feet. Frisk clutched something invisible next to them like a hand.

"WHAT'S WRoNG?"

"Y-you scared me there for a second." Said Frisk. It was true. The crack running down his face, the slight dripping, the garbled voice. It was all-too-familiar and frightening.

 _Stop acting creepy, bonehead, you're scaring Frisk. Turn off your weird... voice-thing. And maybe get your colour back?_

"MY vOICE? SORRY, IT'S NOT LIKE THaT NORMALLY. SOMETHING's WRONG, I DON'T FEEL LIKE I SHOULD BE ABLE TO TALK TO YOU... BUT I'M SO GLaD TO SEE YOU! COME HERE, FRISK!" Papyrus extended his arms into a long hug. Comfort swelled in his chest.

When Frisk ran to hug him back though, they phased through him. Their arms passed through his form, along with the rest of them. Papyrus clutched at his chest. The pain was miniscule to him, but Frisk must have taken a fall. They weren't hurt, were they? He wasn't exactly sure on the Void rules yet. "ARE YOU OK? I'M PRETTY INCORPOREAL NOW, I GUESS!"

"I-I'm fine!" Frisk let out a tiny laugh, balancing to their feet.

 _Enough messing around._ A new voice entered the conversation. The pale ghost next to Frisk revealed themself, this time something tucked into the ghost's pocket. _Papyrus, I have something for you._

Chara pulled out a void paper from thin air, full of wingding symbols and odd devices. _It's my best recreation of your brother's stupid blueprints._ Tiny angry doodles of Chara cutting humans up dotted the edge of the page, the wingdings themselves near illegible because of the handwriting, but what really stuck out was a small cubic device that Papyrus recognized instantly. He snatched up the paper in his hands.

"WAIT A MINUTE, THAT THING BELONgED TO SANS! MAYBE hE CAN HELP!"

Chara was apprehensive at the idea of Sans helping. On one hand, he could probably get his machine to work, and on the other, he would probably take revel in killing Chara a few times before they ever started working together. _Let's try to keep him out of this._

* * *

Sans woke up to a very familiar noise.

"SANS! SANS!" The noise that greeted him every morning, or... pretty much whenever he closed his eyes for a moment. This time it was Gaster however, and the slightly melted skeleton didn't look very amused. Heh. He looked like Papyrus when he was mad.

"Where did your brother go?!" Gaster's bony hands dug into Sans' slumped-over shoulder. "TELL ME THIS INSTANT!" A deep hiss escaped Gaster's throat, like a deep static, backdropping his already distorted voice.

"huh? oh.. i dunno." Gaster let out another hiss. Sans yawned. Papyrus would come back any instant, revealing he just hid under the bed or something. Even if he wandered off into the lab, it wasn't like Papyrus was weak or anything. Then again, the last time Gaster saw him, he was just a tiny baby bones. Well, not counting watching the timelines, but something told Sans that watching your sons get killed over and over didn't bode so well for stress.

"Go find him." Gaster's voice contained an aura of authority even Sans couldn't help but obey. Even if it was in the laziest way possible. Sans teleported out of the lab, leaving the older skeleton to rant about inside. "papyrus, you there?" Huh, no response. That usually worked.

A jolting feeling passed through Sans' bones as he slowly lumbered through the hallway. Golden-orange magic was tingling in the air. Undoubtedly Papyrus's. But what was Papyrus possibly using magic inside here, such powerful magic no less. Following the trail, Sans gathered his own magic and-

* * *

"hey paps." Sans rather suddenly appeared next to Papyrus, causing the tall skeleton to completely flip out. HOW DID HE? WHAT? Papyrus had to get to the bottom of this!

"SANS! HOW DID YOU FInD ME AND FRISK'S SUPER SECrET GREY ROOM!?"

"i felt it in my bones." Sans smiled, the best could with his near-constant grin. Sans' voice, though mixed and shifting like Papyrus', kept a much softer and deeper tone than his brothers, as to be expected.

"SSSSAAaAAAANNNNSsSSSSssSS!" The odd translation between dimensions made it come out more as a scream of pain than a usual comical groan. It was unsettling to Frisk, but sort of charming in it's own demented way, kind of like the amalgamates. "SERIOUSLy, HOW DID YOU FIND US?"

"actually, i followed your magic. jeez, you don't need to use that much for teleporting, ya know." Sans turned around to see Frisk trying (and failing) to tug at his hoodie. When he looked up, he saw not Frisk but...

 _Surprised, Sansy?_

Sans eye flickered between blue and yellow for just a second, his hands curling into a tight fist. His soul felt like it could leap out of his chest at any moment. _See, Papyrus, this is why I don't talk to him._

"d-do you know them?" Sans looked at Papyrus, who smiled at the two young children as if one of them wasn't a haunting ghost.

"YEAH! ThEY'RE MY NEW FRIEND! THEIR NAME IS CHARA, AND THEY WanT TO HELP US eSCAPE, RIGHT?"

 _Yep, that's right! So, trashbag, I take it that this machine-thing is yours?_ Chara pulled out the blueprints.

"yeah, what about it?" Sans ignored the immature doodling.

 _Alphys said it's intact and in this void. If you can find it, we'll be able to stabilize the area for long enough to get you and Papyrus through._

"so, you need our help to get it."

 _Exactly._

Sans knew a trap when he saw one, but the idea seemed to give Papyrus some hope. At the very least, finding that machine could give them the ability to talk with Alphys and Frisk. "as long as you leave us alone, kid, we'll do it."

"WE WILL FIND IT!" Chirped Papyrus, wearing a very determined expression. Frisk mirrored the expression, their ghostly friend simply grinning and nodding as a goodbye.

 _It's time to go, Frisk._

"don't break a leg, kiddo. see you soon."

"BYE, FRISK."

The room began to splinter into many different parts, or way that just his voice. Papyrus could hear an odd beeping noise filled his skull, the rattling of bones filling the air. His soul jerked erratically inside his ribcage, as he was plucked back into The Void. The pain, though brief, left Papyrus in mild sobs. His chest burned, like his soul was trying to stay in reality, but his body was cast back into it's new home. Well... one day he'll see Frisk again. For real, and it will be worth it. He knew it.

* * *

"found paps, he was just hiding under the bed." Sans let out a fake laugh, though it was barely distinguishable from his normal laugh. He was good at pretending to put on a smile. Sometimes, it was even a kind of "fake it till ya make it" kind of thing. But honestly, right now, he was just happy Papyrus was ok.

"Good. It took you two long enough. Papyrus, come this way."

"..OK!" Papyrus paused for just a moment before running after Gaster.

Sans, meanwhile, decided it was good a time as any for another nap.

* * *

"Sit down, and stay here for a moment." Gaster's voice was much cooler, smoother and deeper, as he attached a . Much more... normal. But that's what sent shivers up Papyrus' spine. It didn't sound like the goopy dad that he met yesterday. It sounded like a scientist, who was observing him like he would a test, though that was not true. He was his son, and Papyrus knew Gaster knew that! So why was he acting so... strange? Was it because he ran away? Oh, Papyrus never meant to upset him!

"THIS FEELS UNCOMFORTABLE." Papyrus poked at the long cable extending through his ribs and into his chest, attached to his soul. His sweater and scarf (now merged into a scarf-sweater) laid on a separate chair in Gaster's lab, his bare rib cage exposed to the soul machine thingy.

"If you haven't had run away, I wouldn't be doing this."

"Y-YOU KNOW?" The great and stealthy Papyrus thought that he may have gotten away with sneaking out of the house.

"Oh course I know! Do you think Sans is the only one who noticed the ridiculous amounts of magic buzzing around the house?" Gaster's expression turned from angry to a sort of calm. "Ah, there it is." He returned with a small mechanical device, a small grasping device, with eight grasping digits. It was barely bigger than Gaster's smallest distal bone, barely hovering on his finger.

"YOU'RE GOING TO PUT SPIDERS IN ME!? THE GREAT PAPYRUS HUMBLY APOLOGIZES, PLEASE DON'T FILL ME WITH SPIDERS!" Papyrus tried to back away, but found himself held steadfast with magic.

"You're going to destroy me one day, heh." Gaster took out the spider-device and dropped it into Papyrus' ribcage, where it promptly rested next to his SOUL on the inside of his sternum. "It's not a spider, it's a tracker. If you are lost again, I will be able to find you and make sure you are ok."

"OH, OK."

"Now sit still, please. Your SOUL's in a rough shape from the transition back. I will heal it." Gaster put his holed hands to Papyrus' ribcage. A surge of magic rushed into Papyrus, and despite it's familiarity, it still felt alien in his body. It shouldn't be there, that twisting magic, that soon became intertwined with his own so far that he couldn't tell whose magic was who's. Gaster then detached the SOUL machine from Papyrus' chest, sketching down a few notes.

"THIS WILL HELP?" Papyrus clutched at his chest, the tingling of the settling robot and the intensity of the magic making him feel slightly dizzy.

"Yes."

"THANK YOU, DAD!"

"I will speak with you tomorrow once more.

You are dismissed."


	7. Chapter 7

Papyrus was not usually tired. But between teleporting, seeing Frisk again, and whatever Gaster did, the great Papyrus had to admit defeat to tiredness. Papyrus crawled onto his bed, bunching up the blanket in his hands. Sans was already fast asleep, most likely for some time already. Laying his head down on his bed's pillow, Papyrus closed his eyes. It didn't feel quite right without a bedtime story.

Sans felt a large and pointy skeleton crawl into his bed, limbs too long for their body clutching onto his ribcage. Sans' eyes pulled open slowly, to the slightly gooey mass of bones and cloth hugging him.

"having trouble getting to sleep?" The taller skeleton nodded.

"SANS, COULD YOU TELL ME A STORY?" Papyrus whispered.

"heh. well, i've had a story i've shoulda told you a long time ago."

"REALLY?"

"this is the story of a kid who fell into a mountain." Sans took in a deep breath.

"they were scared, and didn't know what to do. eh, who can blame them, we monsters can be kinda scary." Sans eye lights went out for a second, and his grin was starting to fade. "they met a trickster who told them it was was kill or be killed. they were hurt so badly. then, they were so scared, that they hurt people that were only trying to help them. they hurt many, many people."

"OH, SO IT WAS FRISK!?" Papyrus' brows creased in an expression that was a mixture of disappointment and sadness. Sans almost forgot that Papyrus spent last night having recurring nightmares about the kid.

"uh, yeah." Sans rubbed the back of his skull. Gee, he was going to ruin Papyrus with a story like this, why did he even think this was a good idea for a bedtime story? "it didn't really end there though. you see, uh, this kid had a friend too. this friend was so powerful that they could control time. the kid asked them to restart, and over and over again they did. they tried and tried, but it wasn't enough. every time, they lost just that tiniest bit of hope. they couldn't fix what they'd done.

they felt so bad about what they did, that they went back to the beginning. to fix the gardens they ruined, to calm the dusts they kicked up, and to heal those they hurt. and the monsters forgave and loved them, with all of their hearts. they all believed in the kid so much, that when the kid were supposed to hate the one who tricked them in the first place.. they only felt love. and with that love, the kid took their friends back to their world. and everybody lived happily ever after."

Papyrus' smile returned, even though he had dozed off already. Sans, too lazy to remove Papyrus from his bed, fell asleep in the taller skeleton's grasp.

* * *

"I see that you two got a good night's rest." Gaster smiled over a cup of coffee, taking a deep sip. How interesting it was that void creations seemed to have properties that affected other objects in the void (like himself) in a similar way to their material counterparts. It made him wonder if he and his sons were nothing more than void creations hosted by their souls. If, when they got out of the Void, they would find themselves nothing more than a charred remainder at the bottom of the CORE. It was best not to think about such things, especially at seven in the morning.

Papyrus was practically bouncing with energy, taking it upon himself to make pancakes for the whole family. Pancakes filled with spaghetti. It was probably a bad idea to tell Papyrus he could summon whatever object he wanted in the Void.

Gaster took a small bite, his expression quickly turning from a semi-sleepy smile to a scrunched up skull. The taste was indescribable. In the worst way possible.

"WOWIE! I'M GLAD YOU LIKE IT SO MUCH! YOU KNOW, PEOPLE ALWAYS DO THAT WHEN I GIVE THEM MY SPAGHETTI! I MUST BE REALLY GOOD AT COOKING!"

"It's.. uh... very good, but why don't you leave breakfast to me next time?" Gaster choked out between chews. The pancake looked fine from the outside, if a bit burnt, but on the inside was nothing but dry, hard spaghetti.

"THAT SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT IDEA! AS LONG AS YOU LET MASTER CHEF PAPYRUS HELP YOU!"

 _I think I'll be the one helping you._ Gaster's skull scrunched up as he took another bite of the horrible pancake-spaghetti beast. He pushed the plate away and patted his nonexistent stomach. "Thank you, but I seem to be rather full right now." Papyrus immediately took the plate to the kitchen without hesitation, throwing the plate into the sink with enough force Gaster worried it would crack.

Sans ate the pancakes without so much as a compliant, the noodles whistling between his closed teeth, and the pancake pieces scraping against his grin. How did he do it? This was an important matter that needed to be investigated.

"Do you actually like this?" Said Gaster, turning to face Sans, who was absorbing the culinary disaster through his teeth.

"yeah, sure, it's edible. just needs some more flavour." Sans poured an absurd amount of ketchup onto the second pancake.

"You disgust me." Despite the words, Gaster had a small grin plastered onto his skull.

"thanks."

Gaster smiled a bit, narrowing his eyes. "Well, you enjoy your... "pancake". I'll be in the lab." Gaster took his lab coat off of it's rack and enterred. His work never ended, especially with two new variables introduced into this Void. The time for family would come later. The fourth entity, Chara, had to be removed.

* * *

It was about 30 minutes until a small shape appeared entered the lab. "Use the door, Sans, it's not that hard." Gaster's hands were busily working on the insides of what appeared to be giant DT machine, inspecting the empty vials that laid within.

"whatcha got there?" Sans looked over Gaster's shoulder, taking a look inside the machine. A few of the vials were removed, but all of them were empty.

"Put a lab coat on, you are my assistant, are you not?" Gaster let out a dull groan under his breath as he used his magic to close the extractor back up. It was heavy, so heavy that even his magic took a bit of a strain. Not enough to break into sweat, but a hassle.

"yeah, ok." The lab coat rather suddenly appeared on Sans, too big for the small skeleton, and messily thrown on top of his shirt. His hoodie seemed to miraculously replaced the lab coat on the rack. Bending the rules of space was so easy when you existed outside of them.

"now you gonna answer my question or not?"

"Fine, I trust you, but if I show you, you have to promise to use this knowledge responsibly."

"cool." Sans felt a tinge of excitement building in him. He hadn't been in the lab for so long, and Gaster was bound to have some new tricks in here.

"You know about Gaster Blasters, don't you?" Gaster's fingers outstretched to the air, clutching his fizzling magic in his fingertips. Sans saw the familiar shape in the air, only to have the blaster twist into a much different form.

A shape grew above Gaster's head, bigger and bigger. Curved horns gave way to long tubes that pierced into the skull's plates. It's maw was split down the middle, like a DT extractor's was, and it's hollow eyes soon came alight with two red spots, like drops of blood inside of the skull. The skull was elongated near the front, long teeth giving way to a mouth with several cords hanging out of it.

"It's not finished yet, but the DT Blaster is perhaps a more effective weapon for combatting what I have found to be the anomaly. Chara, the child you met, they having been combining their and Frisk's determination to override the timeline. This machine will make short work of them and their determination, shall they be restrained."

"so you believe that this is the key to securing our timeline? more violence?"

"What other choice do we have? You have reasoned with them, but how long until they get bored? How long until they give up on saving you, and go back to the underground, where nobody will be able to stop them? You know they will. Their power needs to be taken from them."

"what then? the flower will be in charge again, it'll all go back to the way it was."

"We'll destroy the flower. We'll take back determination. We'll destroy the anomalies."

"and how do i know the determination will be better in your hands?" Sans' voice grew just a bit louder. Gaster's eyes widened slightly at the statement. Gotcha.

"You don't trust me." Gaster said in a matter-of-fact statement. Though his skeletal smile was hard to let down, he forced into a grimace of sorts.

"not any more than i'd trust anybody else who'd want determination." Sans let out a sigh. "i've seen it time and time again. power corrupts. hp, atk, def, gold, execution points, love. determination. dad, i trust you as a person, but i don't trust power. we need to keep it in the right hands, and the right hands aren't the ones who want it."

"That's an interesting point of view." Gaster grin levelled out back to it's usual expression. "Curious perhaps, that you believe that the human is the one deserving of such power. I thought you would've given up on them by now."

"maybe i am becoming a bit of a softie, heh. blame it on frisk."

"I beg you to reconsider. This may be the opportunity to secure you and your friend's happy endings, while you are all still alive and on the surface." Gaster stroked the DT blaster, before making it disappear. Sans looked around, to the cords hanging from the

"i'll help ya, but don't hurt the kid. if you hurt frisk, buddy...

you're going to learn why they don't reset."

* * *

The rest of the day was rather uneventful. For once, Gaster was proud of that fact. He let his two sons pick out a board game, to which the results were rather varied.

Sans' choice of game was chess. Chess was a fun distraction from work, Sans proving himself a practical genius at the game. He always seemed to know Gaster's next move, planning ahead, eventually just fooling around and attempting to capture queens with pawns. Gaster smiled. Two could play at that game. Eventually, the matches became one-for-one, the two players stuck constantly one-upping each other. Papyrus was not nearly so good at this game, to say the least. He didn't seem to understand the strategy of the game, leaving his king wide out in the open, exchanging his queen for a pawn and trying to make T shapes with the horses.

Scrabble was Papyrus' choice of game for the night, and as expected, the scarfed skeleton dominated the game board with increasingly bizarre words. Cazique, qanat, flapjack, where did he even learn those words? Sans proved himself to be rather adept to, his fast wit gaining him both points and terrible one-liners. "hey gaster, can we have _scramble_ d eggs tomorrow morning?"

Later, after a nice non-spaghetti dinner, he let the boys do their own thing for a bit, as he had work to do. He always had work to do. Some called it an obsession, others simply stated that he was hard-working. But whatever it be, he wanted to believe he was needed. He wanted to make a change, to make everything better again.

Gaster pulled his lab coat over his usual black robe, and opened the door to his hidden quarters. Various computers laid untouched, but not inactive, inside. With a brush of his magic, they hummed to life, a peaceful chirp accommodating a screen alit with the words, "Welcome back, Dr. Gaster". Gaster touched the mouse, searching through his archives.

He pulled up his data on Papyrus' tracker.


	8. Chapter 8

The climb down the mountain was a lot harder without the gentle guiding hands of Toriel. Frisk gritted their teeth, taking a small leap down as to not hurt themselves. Not that they were afraid of getting hurt, they were almost numb to pain by now, but of what Toriel would say if they came back with even the smallest wound on them. Frisk let out another short stammer as their foot lost it's grip, leading them sliding down an admittingly not-so-steep slope. Catching their breath, Frisk's hands flew to their sides, regaining their center of gravity.

 _You've been awfully quiet. And I'm not just talking about your voice either. Pretty quiet up here too._ Chara floated next to Frisk and pretended to ruffle their hair. Frisk waved their hands at Chara, harmlessly passing through the ghost. _Boy, you must look stupid to anybody passing by._ Frisk started to run, finishing their descent of Mount Ebott. Their feets weighed heavier against the ground than the child's small size would suggest, kicking up leaves and dirt in their run.

The sun had begun its slow descent into the distance, the orange glow turning the clouds a cotton-candy pink. Frisk's new running shoes made travel easier, running through the dirt and grass with ease. Chara floated quickly to keep up with them, bopping up and down in almost rhythmic beats. Frisk simply ran even faster. A small sob escaped the child's lips, before they snuffed it out.

 _Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you!_ Chara frowned, a very slight one, but not unnoticable. Frisk simply looked away. _Oh! You're feeling bad about Sans and Papyrus, aren't you? No worry, your old friend Chara is on it! I'm sure they will come back. If you knew how much they love you, then you would know that too._ Chara put an ethereal arm around the small child.

Frisk's face lifted into a small, slight smile. Chara's feelings died with them, but seeing Frisk happy brought a small light back to their chest, perhaps some remnant of a forgotten sense of empathy. Maybe they were doing the right thing, if for reasons that any other individual would see as shallow. What would be the show without it's cast, after all? Chara rested a ghostly hand on Frisk' shoulder, following them back to Toriel's home. _Just play it cool, ok?_ Frisk's shoulders bunched up as a familiar figure smothered them in a motherly hug.

"My child! Where were you!?"

* * *

It was particularly late at night (or at least what Gaster could guess as night) when he heard the telltale sign of two slippers on the cold lab floors. Gaster's hand fumbled, closing his data sheets. His breath hitched as he used his own teleportation abilities to appear next to the short interloper. As expected, the smaller skeleton was inspecting the DT Blaster, tiny hands clutching onto various pieces of metal and magic. How long had Sans been up there?

"I thought you liked sleeping." Gaster's hand gripped tightly onto the work desk next to him, long bony fingers tapping against the metallic surface. The DT Blaster hummed to life, sending a shockwave of fear through Sans, who backed away quickly, as if he expected the machine to attack him. A small bead of sweat made it's way down his brow.

"just coming to see how your progress is going." The suppressed air of tension made it's way between the two. What was a dull hum, too tiny to notice, because a stinging buzz, the surroundings seemingly getting just a bit darker.

"Or to sabotage it?" Gaster smiled, and gave a small laugh. He was surprised to not see a guilty expression, but rather a smug look on the smaller skeleton's features.

"nah, quite the opposite buddy. fixed your magic amplifier." Sans' eye lit up bright blue for a second, turning the DT Blaster around with the turn of his hand. The skeleton's smile widened to see the disbelieving look on Gaster's face as his machine turned to its creator. It truly was terrifying, looking at it from the receiving side. Sans held up his other hand as if to say _"don't worry, I won't shoot"_. Sans revelled in the look on Gaster's face. It was an odd mix of fear and pride in the younger skeleton's work.

"I see you've also attuned it to yourself. I'm surprised you have picked it up so easily. Quite literally." Two white irises appeared in Gaster's eyes as he used his magic to turn the machine away. A grinding noise began, deep within the machine, flinching before his own magic dissipated from the blaster. "Do you want to take it for a test run?"

Sans' magic recoiled from the device, gently dispersing.

"let's just sit down and have a chat before we do anything crazy. i still don't know what your plan is here. last time we got a bit... heated, to say the least."

Gaster sighed. It was obviously an excuse to get him to talk, but he didn't really want to risk Sans damaging the machine. "Fine." Gaster set down the blaster, jaw closing and eyes fading to an inky black. The air smelled slightly of steel and smoke, the pervasive odour clouding the room. Despite this uncomfortable scenario, Gaster pulled up the chairs from his office, sitting down on one of them.

"This DT Blaster is summonable at will, easy to teleport, much like your Gaster Blasters. The next time the anomaly, most likely known to you as "Chara", travels between timelines through the Void, we will drain them of DT. As for your concerns, I shall store the DT away in someplace they will be safe, for as you know, a plan to be used only for emergencies. Chara, and all who control time like them shall be nothing more than a faint memory."

"hmm, yeah, i suppose it would work for chara." Sans was never much of a fan of the kid, but something in him wondered if they were anything except determination. As much as Sans reviled the manipulative piece of trash, he wouldn't wish death upon them, especially not now that they seemed to acting... semi-friendly.

None the less, it was something Sans was quite eager to stop worrying about, death kids with knives and time abilities. Sometimes, children needed to be shown there were consequences for their actions, especially those who won't listen to reason. Chara wasn't the concern of this plan, but the two other "anomalies."

Sans did not like the flower any more. At least Chara didn't have the gals to make it personal by messing with his brother, at least not without an intent to aid (possibly, Sans still didn't quite get Chara's plan). It left a sore blotch in Sans's throat, the sickeningly sweet tone that Flowey took on as a mask. Frisk made Sans pause for a minute, but if he could get the kid to come willingly, he could get Gaster to go easy. Besides, once Frisk was free of determination, they'll just go on living their life like any ordinary kid. No problem, as long as nothing got too heated. Sans made up his mind. The project was a go-ahead. Welp, time to drop the bomb.

"you might have made a slight mistake in your plan." Sans took a deep breath. Be honest with him, lying got you in this nonsense in the first place.

"Hmm? Do tell me Sans, I am all ears." Sans chuckled a bit. Between the two of them, there were precisely 0 ears.

"frisk? flowey? don'tcha need to be on the other side for that to work?" Sans raised an eyebrow, his fingers drumming along the desk, one by one. "i know of a way to get back. i brought a machine with me. yunno, the one i though was destroyed in the core? apparently it's still here." There it went. Sans' smile widened into a sly grin.

"How long have you been hiding this from me?" Gaster's face shifted to a nearly indescribable emotion. Curiosity? Disappointment? Excitement? It made Sans feel a bit heavy in the chest for Gaster to instantly assume he's been hiding this info, but then again, it's not like his track record said otherwise. Heck, he didn't even tell Paps about the secret project and his little disagreements with Gaster.

"only since yesterday." Sans looked slightly off to the side. "yunno, when me and papyrus saw the kids. heh, sorry about that." Sans wasn't an idiot. Of course Gaster would know, of course he would. If Sans could find Papyrus so easily, what's to say Gaster couldn't?

"It is fine." Gaster smiled to Sans, with a look that said _"I forgive you."_ Sans' perpetual smile twitched, as he felt just a tiny bit horrible, to so easily have arguments and broken rules swept under the rug like that. Gaster would have never done that before his fall. Which filled Sans mind with a horrible thought, one he never wanted to have about anybody who was being so friendly, family no less. _"what are you planning?"_ Sans took a deep breath of the stale air, swallowing his fears, trying to repress them like he always did. A deal was in order. A mutual benefit. Sans knew that the help of Gaster would come at a cost, and he knew what odds he would take.

"so, if i help you with the blaster, will you help me with the machine? we could finally go home." Sans seem to let out a sigh of relief, plastering his fake smile back on, as symbol of a distant hope, one that, quite frankly, seemed so very far away, and impossible. Home sounded so good right now. To have this family back together, real and whole, it was so tempting. He extended a bony hand to Gaster.

The deal was a no-brainer to Gaster, a win-win. With the anomaly to be dismantled, and everyone to go home, it seemed to good to be true. It seemed almost as if he'd forgotten why they- nevermind. Gaster had to admit, somewhere inside of him, this was the dream he had in his lucid nightmares, the endless years spent drifting the Void. A chance to redeem himself, another chance to be with his sons. A voice screamed in the back of this mind _"trust no one"_ , but it was as if his mouth was moving faster than his mind.

"I shall acquire your machine, and we'll fix it together." Gaster shook Sans' hand. Both of their smiles widened a bit into something vaguely resembling hope. The hope to repair what has been gone for so, so long.

 _Together._

Sans suddenly got a sick feeling in his guts, as if some ethereal shadow was watching them and laughing.

* * *

The day was about at normal as days went. It was weird to feel a sense of normal this early, but it was as something frozen in amber had just been released into the air again. Except all of these skeletons were so big and old now, and had responsibilities of their own. Wait, responsibilities...

Then, Gaster realised he missed his briefing with Papyrus yesterday. Granted, time was quite a meaningless concept in the void, but still...Gaster, late? He would not stand for it! Dragging the scarf-clad skeleton off by his wrist (which led to a few raised eyebrows from Sans), Gaster led Papyrus to the training room.

The large room smelled faintly of ash and bone, various dummies lying destroyed about the room. That might have been his fault. With a snap of Gaster's fingers, the broken dummies dissipated into magic. With this idle magic, he formed a clip-board, pen and a new dummy.

"WOWIE, ARE ALL SCIENCY ROOMS THIS BIG?" Papyrus looked around the white room, touching the large padded walls with his mittens as he passed by. Gaster grabbed the mittens and put them on the ground. Papyrus was clearly uncomfortable with this, and before he could protest, Gaster interjected.

"You'll get these back once we're done training. Wouldn't want anything interfering with our results."

"TRAINING?! ARE YOU GOING TO TEACH ME YOUR SECRET LOST-MENTOR TRICKS!?" Papyrus' eyes lit up into black sparkly orbs, before taking on a combat stance that was clearly mimicked from Undyne, except carrying the undeniable flamboyance of the energetic skeleton in every movement.

"Why yes, actually! You know how to summon a Gaster Blaster, correct?"

"GASTER BLASTER?" Papyrus looked puzzled.

"The giant floating skull?" Gaster bounced his hands in the air as if to mimic the floating shape of a blaster.

"OH, THE SKULL-THINGY? OK! WATCH THE GREAT PAPYRUS PERFORM HIS SPECIAL ATTACK! NYEH!" The effect was rapid, magic condensing into a skull-like form. Rigid bone structures erupted from the canine-like skull floating in the air, and it's jawline split into two equal parts. Papyrus didn't like it one bit, the skull felt too.. powerful. It made him feel like he was going to hurt someone whenever he brought it out. Papyrus' hand trembled slightly, keeping his grip tight and controlled on the blaster, finally letting it solidify into a corporeal form.

"Fire at will." Gaster redirected the broken magic of the old dummies to build a new construct. Papyrus hesitated, holding the blaster close and restrained. Gaster sighed. How could he measure Papyrus' stats if he didn't want to FIGHT? "What's the holdup?"

"WHAT IF I MAKE THE DUMMY UPSET?" Papyrus realised it seemed like an outlandish question out of context, but Undyne's dummy was... something else. A bit mad, a bit crazy. Just a bit. Ok, a lot, but he just had a lot of passion for such a small cotton body. The question was a reflex of habit in a sense. Trying to regain some familiarity.

"Dummies don't have thoughts, dummy. Now, shoot!" Gaster seemed almost excited, as Papyrus let loose the blaster, the skull's jaw line bursting into two parts, the blaster's magic-white irises bulging, flowing magic charring the dummy into a crisp, though putting careful effort into leaving the dummy itself intact. "That's the spirit, my boy!" Gaster summoned a blaster of his own, noticeably large, the blaster's horns throwing the dummy across the room.

Papyrus felt a bead of sweat trickle down his forehead, as his father's cold embrace caught onto his shoulder. "Again." He said, pointing the dummy. Papyrus fired the blaster again, bursting the dummy into cotton-filled pieces.

"OOPS." Papyrus' cheeks flushed with a faded red. He'd been working so hard to control his damage output to the tee, and he just blew up that dummy. He couldn't help but feel a bit embarrassed, especially under what seemed to be a test or trial of some kind. Gaster just smiled, in a way that reminded Papyrus vaguely of Undyne's enthusiasm as she nearly destroyed the dummy. Except, maybe it was something in the edges, maybe it was something in his eyes, Papyrus thought Gaster's expression looked much more distant. Papyrus frowned, worried that he upset Gaster.

"No matter, continue forth with a blue attack on this next dummy." The energy between the two skeletons was rather astounding, the air crackling with magic as another dummy was summoned. A wave of blue bones wrapped around the dummy, trapping it in the center. Then, Papyrus sent a giant blue bone through the middle, obviously not doing anything the still dummy.

"Impressive." Gaster smiled. Papyrus lapped up the praise like a man in a desert might find water, beaming back with a smile. The skeleton's reserves were rather drained by that one attack, the sheer scope of the giant bone taking up a lot of energy. A habit to train out later, such use was not efficient.

"One more time, perhaps a rundown of your bone attacks, and a final blast?" Gaster was writing a few things down on the clipboard, periodically stopping to glance at what appeared to be his watch from afar. Papyrus eagerly complied (one of the things Gaster grew to like about him) summoning a few basic rows of bone, the pearly-white rods of magic appearing and disappearing with relative ease.

Finally, the blaster condensed again, this time with much less hesitation. Papyrus took aim, making a split-second decision of power that he hoped would leave the dummy intact, when suddenly he felt something tug around his soul. The fast constriction rapidly sent magic jolting through his body in an adrenaline rush, the blaster sending a titanic wave of magic forward. His breath stopped for a moment, taking in the brief moments in which the dummy shattered to pieces. The blaster gave a moan that turned into screech as magic continued bursting through, sending cotton bits and dust throughout the room, before finally dissipating.

Papyrus clutched his chest, heaving. A cold stream of sweat was dripping down his skull, from fear, exhaustion and from an odd sense of excitement. Gaster grinned, turning off his "watch." The tension Papyrus' chest lifted, instead being replaced by heavy panting. "OH MY GOSH, WHAT WAS THAT!? I'M SORRY!"

"Sorry, that may have been my fault." Gaster's magic uncurled from Papyrus' SOUL, the white soul popping back to white from a previous blue colour. "I wanted to see how you'd perform under mild tension. I wasn't expecting THAT." Slightly unexpected, but useful to know.

"GIVE ME A WARNING FIRST! THAT WAS... OOOHHHHH... MY BONES ARE SORE." Papyrus straightened his spine and neck, a small _pop_ resonating through his vertebrae , a small tinge of frustration crossing his face.

Gaster CHECKed Papyrus through his tracker (hidden as a watch). _Papyrus. LOVE 1, EXP 0. ATK 20 (though it did rise all the way to 40 for a split-second) DEF 20_

"Not too shabby. Sorry about the SOUL thing, should have given you a heads-up. Anyways, you are a very healthy skeleton, everything seems on point here. " Gaster smiled wearily, and Papyrus smiled back, a wide toothy grin. God, how could one skeleton possess so much joy in a place like this? "You are free to go, though I may require the aid of your great abilities in my project later. I'll be in the kitchen later, if you wish to join me."

"THANKS DAD! BYE!" Papyrus waved a long, bony arm, as if he hadn't just finished an extremely draining attack, and jumped out the door with a physics-defying hop. Gaster gave a small delicate wave goodbye, before cloaking himself in his shadowy robes and teleporting into the ethereal void. Everything was going swell.


	9. Chapter 9

Gaster had incredible knowledge of The Void. It made sense, as he'd been trapped there for so long, so long he could barely remember the feeling of the radiant glow of Hotland, so long he only vaguely recall the war that left him with two unmistakable scars.

He teleported to the edge of the timelines, watching the never-ending flow. Though The Void had a theoretically endless space, he was drawn to these inaccessible timelines. He felt drawn to them of all of the infinite possibilities, despite never existing in a single one. He was a moth to a flame, standing over the only real thing in this Void.

Timelines, like rivers, flowed endlessly across the vast expanse, some ending in pools, others cast off into the Void's endless blackness. Bright colours meshing with the inky darkness, torrential streams falling into nowhere, it was almost beautiful. Voices and whispers called from the river, replaying moments over and over. Gaster sighed, a rough and grating noise. He could sit, and watch these timelines for hours, seeing what he could never have.

Those timelines were of no concern. What he was looking for now was where the machine could possibly be, where it fell out of the timeline. A metallic glimmer caught his eye socket, a pin-prick iris forming in the center of them as he fixated on the object. Yes, this was it.

In its final moments, the machine was scattered far across the Void. Luckily, Gaster was an expert on the Void, it being his prison and all. Following the shimmering shards, the shattered bits of reality left in it's wake, he was led to the metal cube, small words etching the edges. _FUN_ _Stabilizer. Here we are!_ Thought Gaster, bony hands reaching out for the cube-like machine.

His bony fingers ran over the object, gently caressing it as if it were a pet. Gaster heard a noise creak in the shadows, a figure flickering for just a moment in the shadows. Quickly, he stashed it away into his cloak, almost appearing to absorb it into his skeletal form. Another step, another step, one more, and he was gone without a trace.

* * *

Frisk let out a sniffling noise, shuffling onto their bed, when they felt a pair of red eyes watching them. "Hi Chara." Frisk's voice was soft and quiet, pretty much the exact noise you'd expect to come out of such a small kid. Frisk's face was slightly red, their eyes still wet with tears.

 _Grounded?_ Chara gave a slight sneer.

"Yeah." Frisk looked away, squishing the pillows of the bed between their fingers. Chara swore they saw a tear drop from the kid's eyes.

 _You're such a crybaby. You're like Asriel, but worse._ Chara rolled their eyes. Frisk's head buried itself into a pillow, a soft and wavering noise escaping it's feathery holds. Chara sat (well, could it really be considered sitting if they were just kinda hovering in place) next to Frisk, and looked aside. _You should've lied._ It actually was pretty entertaining to watch, if counterproductive. The kid had lips sealed tighter than zippers, and Toriel had a miniature panic attack, thinking Frisk might've gone to Mount Ebott to- For a similar reason to Chara.

"You know how bad I am at lying. Besides, it'd just make things worse."

 _Pfft, look at you, Mr. Goody Two Shoes._ Only a blank silence returned Chara's joke. Chara let out a sigh, stretching their ghostly limbs out. The silence of the room was deafening and the emptiness of the room crowding. Frisk had several plush animals they never played with lined among the edges of the room, books to read, a handheld gaming device, and a dresser for their clothes, but the room felt so... empty, with only Frisk in it.

Chara let out a whine. They weren't getting anything done! Yeesh, what were those skeletons even up to?! Alphys should've contacted them by now, or something, or anything! Waiting, even for a few minutes, was like hell in this dreary household. A mother who thought her child was trying to run away, and the child too broken to say a thing. God, it was just like... The past was in the past, and nothing more. Painful memories are for another day.

They could fix this. They just needed to remind those boneheads who's in charge. Chara had no doubt that they could find that machine, and when they did, they could tell Sans and Papyrus, they could all go home and play their games and they would all be oh-so-happy. Then, maybe everything could be normal again. Gosh, Chara never imagined the day they would wish for everything to be normal.

Chara admitted that they had a sick feeling in their mind, a perverted curiosity, as to what would happen if they reset. Who could possibly replace those two wacky skeletons? However, there were very clear reasons why they couldn't, one of them sobbing on the bed right now. Chara felt... a lack of resolve in their soul, a lack of determination. It was almost unfair in a sense, to be so dependant on another's soul.

Chara felt Frisk's weighted heartbeat, and their own fell in turn, sinking into a gathering pool of despair. This wasn't good. If things were to keep going like this, Frisk could lose their determination. Without their determination, Chara was nothing. A phantasm stuck in the long-dead soils of the underground, no soul and stuck underground just like that flower. No, they had to keep Frisk hopeful! Isn't that what they've been doing this whole time!?

 _You know what! I'll do your job for you!_ Chara puffed out their small chest, huffing angrily, a gesture that looked ridiculous on such a small child. Frisk looked up from their pillow, a slightly confused look crossing their normally neutral features. _I'll go knock some sense into those numbskulls and I'll throw them right out of the Void!_

Chara was filled with DETERMINATION.

* * *

"This was a bad idea." Gaster looked upon the extra-extra-extra-extra crispy chicken in front of him, a fire stubbornly resisting the water-soaked blanket that Papyrus repeatedly smacked it with. The flame only seemed to burn ever brighter under the pressure. Papyrus smacked the fire again, this time with the full weight of the blanket and his lower arms. With a dull hiss, steam rose to the ceiling, the flame dying off.

"NYEH HEH HEH! THE FLAME HAS BEEN SLAIN BY THE GREAT PAPYRUS! NOW LET'S EAT!" Papyrus was very springy tonight, even for Papyrus, full of laughter and energy. His enthusiasm was impressive, but it didn't bode well for the likelihood of not burning down the house. Half of the counter was scorched beyond belief, and the other half covered in haphazardly shredded cheese, most of it both melted and burnt by the 's magic reserves could've replaced the counter completely, but he got the feeling that he'd be needing his magic soon.

"As appetizing as that looks, I must say the counter looks in a rather sorry state. How about you clean it up?" Gaster knew that Papyrus would instantly take up the offer. If there was one trait he could definitely respect about Papyrus, it was his enthusiasm.

Papyrus gave a salute, using the blanket to wipe down the counter eagerly. Well, this could be relaxing. Gaster summoned another blanket, already wet, and began to wipe some cheese sauce off of the other side of the counter. This meal was a mess.

Hopely Sans wouldn't mind having a conjured meal tonight. In theory, the food shouldn't taste any different from its cooked counterpart, but Gaster remarked that it lacked the "soul" that went into cooking. The slight imperfections that made the final product all the more delicious. A jolt from his wrist snapped him out of his thoughts, with a slight flinch in his step.

Without much warning, his "watch" had begun to beep, a signal from one of his motion detectors going haywire. Of all times, Chara had to show up now. Great. Just when things were about to fall into tune, a night when he needed everything to be just- No, this is ok. He can fix this.

"WAIT-" Papyrus looked down the hall, only to see that Gaster was already gone.

* * *

It was in his study room, oddly enough. They probably chose that room to enrage him all the more when it would invariably be destroyed, or perhaps to isolate him from Sans and Papyrus. That thing was more clever than it looked. Gaster wasted no time in summoning his magic for a quick teleportation, appearing mere feet away from the spirit. Catching his breath from the sudden sharp intake, he let it go in a steady sigh.

The small ghost of a long-deceased child stood atop a pile of books, a small grin accenting their pale face. _Honestly, I'm not surprised you are the one who found it first._ Chara's eyes gleamed a bright red in the darkness, but as Gaster flicked on the lights, they went back to a sort of rusty brown.

" _Honestly_ , I'm not surprised that you think this your business. I am simply helping Sans repair it, which is none of your business." Gaster wrinkled his imaginary nose, taking a few steps closer to the child. He resisted the urge to summon the blaster immediately, instead focusing on getting closer to the child.

 _Hand it over._ Chara's smile cut across their face like a dagger, a mouth full of small pearly white beads slashing open their rosy cheeks. Their voice had a quality to it that almost made Gaster want to give it, but he easily resisted the temptation with a quick shake of a bony hand. Vile magic was only barely contained by his silent rage. How dare the child ask him to hand over his son's progress?

"Give me one good reason why." Gaster smirked, an expression that fit well on his skull.

 _I know how to fix it. I can solve all of this now. Give it to me NOW._ Chara whispered, their facade dropping fast, a sickly sweet tone turned straight into venom. Chara's hand reached out, in a sort of grasping handshake.

"Do you really think that I trust you?" Gaster snarled, taking two more steps closer to Chara. He had to do this slowly. Too fast, and Chara would know something was up. The floorboards creaked, as his shoes pushed their baseless wooden planks. "I have seen many timelines, many in which you have tricked the child into giving their soul to you."

 _No, but, perhaps I shall enlighten you more to my reasons. I am going to do what you won't. You won't do it, and I know you won't because you are a complete dingus._ Gaster's breath skipped a hitch, his magic flaring into his eye sockets for a moment, flashing a bright purple. So close, just a bit more until he could fire.

"And how do you know that? Between us, I am the intellectual superior here, and I trust that I know myself more than you do." Gaster was losing his patience for Chara's games.

Chara's eyes turned into black gaping voids, their grin turning inhumanly large. Their voice took on a more mocking tone again, losing it's edge. _Oh I'm Wingdings and I'm totally omnipresent! Look at me, I know soooooo much! Look, compared to me, Dings, you're a freaking baby bones. You've seen everything from afar. Well, I've experienced it ALL personally. And I've experienced you plenty times before. You won't let them go, because you don't want to go home to that empty Void._

The child spoke only nonsense. Gaster crept closer, only two paces away from the child. "What makes you think I'd rather not return with them?"

 _Did I forget to tell you that the machine can only transport one Gaster-sized skeleton to the real world? Sans made it for you. It can't sustain anything higher. They'll fit together, but it's you or them. Funny, that reminds me of a saying I really like. Kill or be killed? How about trap or be trapped? How is that for an analogy?_ It was so easy to make Gaster mad! Chara watched in glee as the shadowy skeleton's face contorted into a stiff frown, though the edges were being to ride up with slightly protruding teeth.

"Then I'll make sure we're together, no matter what." Gaster looked off to the side for a moment, his latent magic quickly picking up steam. A few seconds, and the blaster would be ready to materialize. Gaster looked to the ground, his hands clenched. "It won't matter anyways. Our existence was pointless torture, we were just burdens on everybody else. Always fated to die, or end up back where we began. This is for their own good."

 _Aah, there it is._ Chara took a step back, pointing towards Gaster, almost poking him. _You haven't changed a day since you fell from that machine. Always trying to rationalize things for "good", but really, you only care about yourself, don't you? Don't you realise how much Papyrus and Sans miss their family, how much Frisk misses them? They belong out there, with their family._

Gaster felt his bones shake, a rattle echoing through the room, filling the wooden shelves with the rhythmic beating of bone. "My sons belong here with me, they are MY family. They'll be safer here." Gaster let out a deep hiss, crackling noises overlaying his heavy breathing. "This is the only solution."

He'd seen so much, so much dust, so much pain. Standing there, helpless as he watched the two humans cut down monster after monster, before resetting and making friends with them all again. They were the real selfish one, treating everybody's lives as if they were just some game. Judgement had to dealt, vengeance must be- ahem, Gaster's mind cleared, the bright yellow radiance in his eyes dimming slightly, being overtaken by the purple again. Got a slight bit carried away for a moment.

 _Aw, you're so cute when you're mad, Dings! Hee hee hee! For a man of science, you are very unreasonable. Emotional. Selfish. Judgmental._ Chara hurled insults like they were firing a gun, each shot louder and more thunderous than the last. _They have friends and family who need them, and you are trying to steal them away for yourself. You know what, Dings? I don't care about your opinion on this. Just let me have it._

"Don't call me Dings." Gaster let out a heaving sigh. Just a few moments, just a few moments...

 _It's been fun here, but I'm taking what belongs to me and Frisk. Don't fight back, you know how this will end._ Chara's voice let out all of it's false charm as Chara let out a mild growl, overlaying the clanking of bones. They reached out for the pockets in Gaster's coat, frisking for the device. The rattling suddenly stopped, as Gaster stilled.

A smile crossed his face.

"You're right. I do know how this will end." Gaster's voice rasped with a deep electronic noise resembling static, as he grasped onto Chara's wrist. With a single motion, he flung them into a bookcase, knocking both Chara and the case over.

Chara quickly rolled out before the shelf could fall on them, summoning a blood-red knife in their right hand. _Ok, you want to do this the hard way, huh?_

The phantasm weapon hurled itself into the darkness that surrounded Gaster, narrowly missing him. A thread of black cloth was cut, giving the cloak a small tear. No matter, such things can be fixed. Gaster summoned his magic into an onslaught of spiralling bones, keeping the blaster hidden for the current time. He would need to lower Chara's HP first. This proved to be quite a hassle, much more than he expected.

The child was incredibly fast, darting from shelf to shelf, forcing Gaster to expend precious energy to weave his attacks up and down lanes. And with each miss, the child got closer, their hands grasping for another blade, and the Void complying, the power of their SOUL granting them temporary magical prowess. Their shadows turned into mocking doubles, and every bone he threw seemed to only land in the ever-growing darkness surrounding him. This wouldn't be easy, he wasn't expecting that. But this? This was a challenge.

Good thing he had some tricks up his sleeve. _Ping!_ Chara's soul suddenly turned blue, but instead of being flung to the floor, they fell onto the roof. A wave of bones cut across the room, scraping against their left leg before they could move out of the way.

A vicious cry, like cornered animal, escaped the child, as shards of bone wedged themselves into tender flesh, leaving streaks of viscous red liquid falling down their kneecap. The protruding bones pierced right through Chara's nerves, leaving their leg with an oddly numb sensation in their wake. Gaster grinned, his fingers delicately working about another attack to Chara's soul. Chara fell backwards, catching themselves with their arms before rolling out of the way.

The attack narrowly missed, cutting a line across of Chara's sweater, fibers of cloth falling onto the ground. As they got up, ready to fire a barrage of knives at him, Gaster noticed the stumble in their scraped leg. That could come into play later.

Red-tinted knives narrowly missed Gaster's face, leaving small etchings on the surface of his skull. _-2 HP._ Pathetic. Gaster threw Chara against the wall, a piercing scream echoing through the air. Just a bit more now, and they would be weak enough to drain. Chara got up, clutching at their chest. With a heaving cough, a splatter of blood stained Gaster's pristine white-paged books. _Y-you know I can just LOAD. I'll load and load, until you die!_

Gaster let out a deep-throated static-like noise that vaguely resembled laughter. A shape materialized behind him, two wicked horns giving way to a split maw. Barbed cables hung down from

"Not this time."

* * *

A scream pierced Papyrus' earholes, suddenly sending jolts of adrenaline through his bones. He recognized that scream very well. Too well for his comfort. As distant as it was, he suddenly felt his legs breaking into a dash, and his voice calling out strong and steady. "FRISK!? IS THAT YOU!?" Papyrus shouted, dashing around a corner.

Oh, what could have gone wrong? Were they lost in the void too? Was he just going crazy? Papyrus slammed his gloves against the wall as he pushed himself around a corner. With only the distant scream to go off of, and the frantic panic in his soul, he made his way to one of the closed doorways. A noise that sounded likely like pained growling and mechanical whirrs escaped from the doorway.

Logically, Papyrus would think about how he would get in trouble for knocking down doors, but logic wasn't something he thought about in the spur of the moment. With a thwack of a conjured bone, he knocked down the door, splintering the wood to pieces with the blunt bone. One hit, two hits, and it fell. The bone in his hand dissipated, as he let out a strangled noise of surprise.

Papyrus' eyes widened, his jaw clenching tight. It wasn't Frisk, and it definitely wasn't what he expected.


End file.
